Forty-two year old Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite is in Seattle this week. Her own company, Kidd Pivot, is already a favorite of On the Boards audiences. But, this time around, she’s in town to set her ballet Emergence on PNB dancers. Originally created for The National Ballet of Canada, this work has […]
In April of 2011, I had the pleasure of traveling to Den Hague in the Netherlands to meet with one of the greatest choreographers of our time, Jiri Kylian. Jiri doesn’t travel far from home, so I went to him. I was there to […]
Twyla Tharp is no ordinary person. One look at her bio and you get that. It’s not just the mountains of awards, medals, prizes, fellowships, and honorary degrees, or the three books, six films, twelve television specials, four Broadway shows, two figure skating routines, […]
Soloist Kiyon Ross is well-known to PNB audiences as an outstanding performer and accomplished choreographer. Recently, he’s taken on a new role assisting choreographer Twyla Tharp in creating her latest work, Waiting at the Station. I sat down with him last week to discuss how he fits in to her the process of […]
Stories are the bridge between the public and the art form. We can’t get them to watch The Four Temperaments until we get them on that bridge. And I can do those stories in ways that haven’t been done before.
Kent Stowell in Mindy […]
Act I, Scene I
In Don Quixote’s study, his niece Joanna is talking to Carasco, his servant. They are worried about the Don, who is slowly but surely being driven mad by all his reading. They therefore decide to hide the Don’s books.
Meanwhile, Don Quixote comes into the study, totally […]
Act II, Scene I
On a plateau in the mountains, a troupe of traveling actors has set up camp. Kitri and Basilio appear and ask the actors to help them escape. While the group performs, Kitri and Basilio put on costumes and join in. When Lorenzo and Gamache arrive at the camp, they are […]
Act III, Scene I
Kitri and Basilio are enjoying themselves with Espada, Mercedes, and a group of friends in a tavern filled with gypsies, bullfighters, and other high-spirited folk. Kitri thinks she has escaped her forced marriage to Gamache. Unfortunately, it is not so easy, as her […]
The History ~ Since its premiere in 1841, Giselle has become one of the most popular ballets of all time and is considered ballet’s great tragedy. Giselle represents the greatest achievement of ballet’s Romantic era. After it fell out of repertory at the Paris Opera, it returned to the West via Russia […]
Peter Boal’s World Premiere staging of Giselle marks the first time an American ballet company has revived a classic based on original material researched by Stepanov notation expert Doug Fullington in collaboration with leading Giselle scholar Marian Smith.
Our work on Giselle continued in early January with a week of rehearsals […]